The Comeback Kid

After a decade away from the game, Cito Gaston is back on the bench

BY: Morgan Campbell

Twenty minutes after the last pitch, most of the fans and media gathered at this spring training game between the Blue Jays and the New York Yankees have trickled out of Dunedin Stadium. The Jays have retreated to their clubhouse and the Yankees to their team bus, and the stadium sits empty except for a few groundskeepers and Jays manager Clarence "Cito" Gaston, his departure delayed by a cluster of autograph-seeking fans. That he attracts so much attention shouldn't surprise you. The only manager to lead the club to a World Series title, Gaston, 65, is the last link to the Jays' glory days. Alongside all-star pitcher Roy Halladay, he's the face of this rebuilding franchise.

And 12 years after his last spring training with the team, Gaston's back where he feels he belongs — in Toronto and in charge. "[Taking this job] was a no-brainer," Gaston said. "I love Toronto. I spend my summers up there. It's like my second home."

A native of San Antonio, Texas, Gaston says he can't imagine managing anywhere besides Toronto, but admits he didn't expect to return to the Jays after upper management forced him out in 1997. Even now, Gaston can't understand why the club was so eager to jettison a pioneer and proven winner.

On June 27, 1989, in Gaston's first year as manager, his Jays faced Frank Robinson's Baltimore Orioles, the first game in Major League Baseball history between two black managers. By 1993, the team had won four divisional titles and two American League titles with Gaston in charge. In 1992 they captured the World Series, the first for a Canadian club and for a black manager, and the next year they repeated the feat. Those remain the only two World Series titles in club history.

But four years after that last title, Toronto's media and Jays management had soured on Gaston. On the field, success grew elusive. In 1992 and 1993 the Jays won 59 per cent of their games, but in the following two seasons they lost nearly 58 per cent of the time. Off the field, Gaston feuded with news media he felt were trying to get him fired. At one point during the 1997 season he even accused FAN 590 radio host Bob McCown of racism.

In September 1997, then-Jays general manager Gord Ash offered Gaston a deal. He could manage through the end of the season and then leave the job, or he could walk away with five games remaining. Gaston walked. After 16 years with the club — nine as a manager and seven as hitting coach — Gaston found himself jobless and confounded. "All of a sudden it's over with and I still lived in Toronto," he said. "It was like, if you don't win every year, you're out of here. I've seen people keep jobs for eight years and not win anything at all."

Shortly afterward, Kansas City asked Gaston to become their hitting coach. He declined, electing to wait for something better.

So he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Two years passed before another team even offered him an interview.

And when the interviews came — the White Sox, Indians, Brewers and Angels all brought him in to talk — they never blossomed into jobs. The pattern repeated so often Gaston wondered if he were a token candidate. So he stopped interviewing altogether. If a team wanted to offer him a job, he would talk. Otherwise he'd rather spend the time playing golf or travelling with his wife, Lynda.

"I'm not going to interview just for the heck of it," he said. "I started feeling like I was interviewing just so [clubs could say] they interviewed a minority. I said, ÔHey, go use somebody else.'"

Meanwhile, Jays' current GM J.P. Ricciardi would call periodically, just to see if Gaston was interested in managing.

Then last June, with the Jays struggling and in the middle of firing manager John Gibbons, Ricciardi called again to offer Gaston the job.

Before he could pause to consider the offer or run it by his wife, Gaston accepted.

Like he did in 1989, Gaston inherited a losing team and guided them to a winning record, but 2009 presents a different challenge. Injuries have depleted the team's pitching staff, and the club didn't sign a single free agent this winter, leaving them thin at key positions.

But Gaston, whose contract runs through 2010, says he'll manage long enough to build a winner, as long as he gets to do it in Toronto.

"After two years, if [the Jays] want to bring in somebody else, that'll be it for me," he said. "But if they want to bring me back for another year or two, I'll stay around. But I don't want to go anywhere else."